The One Where Merlin's Trapped in Riddle's Diary
by artypendragon
Summary: "My name is Arthur Pendragon, and I am the Head Boy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Arthur wrote. "HI ARTHUR IT ME (heart emoji) LONG TIME NO SEE. I MISSED YOU. THAT TOM RIDDLE SON OF A BITCH TRAPPED ME IN HIS HORCRUX," came the reply, ink bleeding up from the yellowed pages of the book.


My name is Arthur Pendragon, and I am the Head Boy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

 _HI ARTHUR IT ME (heart emoji)_ _LONG TIME NO SEE. I MISSED YOU. THAT TOM RIDDLE SON OF A BITCH TRAPPED ME IN HIS HORCRUX_

May I know who you are and how you know me?

 _…you don't recognise me?_

No, fortunately or otherwise.

 _I'm insulted. Goodbye. Bye, now. Don't talk to me. I hate you. Bye bye._

Oversensitive.

 _Well, when your soulmate, the half that makes you whole, the other side of your coin doesn't know who you are, it's bound to sting a little._

I've only known you for two minutes, mate.

 _Good night, Arthur._

* * *

Soulmate, you said.

 _Was that an apology I just absorbed?_

C'mon, mate, I really don't know who you are. Gwaine gave me this book and told me

 _Merlin. You're like a snail with a quill. You used to have much better handwriting; you're lucky I've retained the ability to read your spidery letters through the centuries._

Shut up and stop swearing, I got a detention for that only today. Gwaine told me people've passed this book around for ages, writing a load of tosh in it, secrets and confessions and all that. He never told me you talked back.

 _No, I really am Merlin._

The legendary Slytherin wizard with the hat and the white beard?

 _No, not that bluffer. The real Merlin. From Camelot. Arthur, c'mon, you're not really saying you don't remember._

I would if I had something to remember. And do you normally not respond to the stuff people write in you?

 _First of all, I am not a living book._

1\. Book 2. Talks

 _Bro, do you even Horcrux?_

We haven't got to that part in the DADA course yet. It's on the syllabus, though.

 _A Horcrux is a piece of soul sealed inside an inanimate object with the use of Dark Magic. This book was originally Tom Riddle's diary._

That Tom Riddle?

 _How many are there? Yeah, him. So, he'd done said Dark Magic—it was murder. Do not recommend following in his footsteps—and tore off a piece of his soul to put in here, but I intercepted him (I felt awful for the wizard who'd have to come along and destroy it later!) and he caught me at a weak moment and trapped my entire being in this bloody ancient diary._

Hm.

 _Eloquent._

What weak moment? If the famous Merlin's an impostor, I reckon you'd be much more powerful than him, wouldn't you?

 _Maybe I'll tell you later. I wish you remembered me, though._

What's Camelot?

 _The place we used to live in. Long gone, now._

"We". Have you been stuck in this book long?

 _Years and years and years._

Must've been boring.

 _God, you can't imagine. All these people thinking I'm a confession book just 'cause I sop up all their ink and keep their non-secret secrets—I fancy so-and-so, I cheated on my homework, I pushed someone off their broom and they nearly died—fuck's sake, I couldn't care less (except about that last one but what the hell can I do about it, sitting here). But I can't tell them that; I don't talk back 'cause the first time I tried, some woman set fire to me. Good thing it wasn't Fiendfyre or I wouldn't've got to meet you again._

Good to know I'm special.

 _You have no idea._

* * *

So, the Transfig teach apparently forgot all about the detention she'd given me TWO MONTHS AGO until tonight, when she knew I'd be going down to the pitch for some solo Quidditch practice.

 _What happened?_

Got a lecture on why I'm not allowed to do anything I want, Prince of Hogwarts though I may be—and then had to help Filch sweep the chambers under the trapdoor on the third-floor corridor. Nightmare. Long perished Devil's Snare can still try and get you.

 _Deadly fun, will sulk in the sun._

Dead-ly fun. Heh.

Merlin.

Hey, it wasn't that bad.

* * *

Hi, Merlin.

 _Hey, Arthur. Isn't it midnight?_

Couldn't sleep.

 _What happened?_

Don't know. I mean, I've been talking to you for months now, and I kind of feel like I've known you forever, you know? 'Cause we've chatted that much. But somehow I've been feeling lately like…

 _There's something fundamentally missing in you? That I've been filling?_

Yeah.

 _Arthur, the first time we talked, I told you we were soulmates._

I thought you were a weird book that taught the reader chat-up lines.

 _Go to sleep, Arthur_

Night, Merls

* * *

 _Arthur_

Merlin

 _Don't you have class right now?_

Free period, so I'm in the Common Room with my essay unrolled in front of me, along with you so I'd know immediately if you wanted to waste my time.

 _Need any help?_

Goblin Rebellions.

 _So there was this_

No, I don't need any help! Talk to me about anything but History of Magic.

 _Charms? The Order of the Phoenix? Sirius Black?_

Did you know him?

 _Not really. He wrote "My brother Regulus deserved better" once and then he gave me to someone else._

You seem tired, somehow.

 _Feel like I'm fading. Don't know why. I've been fine for centuries, and I've been fine the few decades I've been in this book, but ever since you touched my pages, I've been, somehow, feeling weak._

Want me to upend a bottle of ink on you?

 _Hah. Please do._

 _Not RED INK, YOU IDIOT. WHO WRITES WITH RED INK EXCEPT TEACHERS_

Good to know you're feeling better!

 _Thanks, Arthur._

I'm sleepy.

 _My first day in Camelot, I saw the King Uther Pendragon condemn a sorcerer to death._

My dad was a king? He condemned sorcery? He holds an Order of Merlin, First Class!

 _Oh, the irony. And you were a prat. I mean prince._

You're making this up.

 _I can show you, if you trust me. I think I could bring you into the book and we could both sift through my memories together._

I… I'll talk to you later. This essay's a bitch.

 _Okay. I'm sorry._

* * *

 _So I've been sitting open on what I hope is your bed, the words FUCK YOU ARTHUR blazing on my pages, and Gwaine dropped by and wrote "u were holding back on me, luv"._

Still Gwaine.

 _Fuck off, I want to talk to Arthur, even though you've got better handwriting than him._

Whyd u never chat w/ me wen I had u?

 _You weren't Arthur._

Arthurs special eh

 _You have no idea._

Merlin, u rly just had to say it was u, u knw

 _YOU'RE MY GWAINE? MY GWAINE OF CAMELOT?_

Hw many r there?

 _I MISSED YOU. HOW'VE YOU BEEN. WHY'S ARTHUR NOT REMEMBER A THING_

Fuck if I knw. He told me bout u tho. U rly held back on me. Missed u too, luv. Gwen, Lance, Elyan, we all tlk abt u all th time. And Percy wen we meet him, hes a Hufflepuff

 _Gwaine, I need to get out of here. Riddle trapped me with this very specific curse and now I think I'm succumbing to it._

What do you need to get out before it kills you

 _…true love's kiss_

Are you sure it was Voldemort who trapped you. Voldemort the murderer, the wicked wizard, the guy who tore his soul up into shreds to try and live forever

 _Yeah. His sense of humour was just as evil as the rest of him_

And Arthur hasn't smooched you yet why

 _I don't think he believes who I am, or trusts me, really. I offered to draw him into the book for a while to show him our shared past and he just… cut off all contact_

Git

 _Hasn't talked to me in about five weeks._

Brb

 _Gwaine, c'mon, I'm LONELY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES_

 _GWAAAAINE_

* * *

Merlin, Gwaine here, do ur sucking into th book thing now, no ques

 _…Okay?_

Tht was a ques

 _Erm, I'm... sorry_

* * *

"So," Arthur says, standing there all regal in his Gryffindor robes, completely ignoring the bustle of Camelot peasants around him and the sorcerer getting beheaded a few metres to his right. "You really were telling me the truth."

Merlin huffs and folds his arms, looking anywhere but at him. He catches Uther giving the command and flinches.

"Merlin, an old family friend of ours told us never to trust anything if we can't see where it keeps its brain. How did you think I would react?"

"I tried to _show_ you! But no, if there's one thing you'd retain across a millennium of non-existence it'd be your idiotic tendency to _never listen to me!_ "

"Gwaine set me straight, don't worry," Arthur says, sighing. "Look, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now that I'm here, but—"

"We can go through the ten years I knew you and you can try and remember your past in time."

"For?"

"My continued survival."

"…no pressure."

Merlin laughs despite himself. Arthur grins, pleased. "Merlin," he says. "I'm sorry I was such a berk. I've known you for less than a year but you're already my closest friend, and I prolly should've trusted you when you said you weren't part of Tom Riddle's soul; he'd choke before writing the heart emoji anywhere."

Merlin makes a face at him, and is met with an armful of Arthur.

"You're really not a hugger," he says, incredulous.

"Maybe this once," Arthur says, holding Merlin tight. "I've finally got to see the person behind the egregious red ink."

"Which was all your fault," Merlin snaps, pulling back and facing Arthur (who looks so pretty with his pink mouth and his snaggletooth and his sparking eyes, he thinks, that his heart might just give out and all his magic expended to bring Arthur into the diary would go to waste). "Really—"

Arthur kisses him with a broad smile on his face.

Merlin beams when they part. They gaze at each for a long minute, silly with affection. But then Merlin's smile slowly fades, as does Arthur's. "Why hasn't anything happened yet?" Merlin asks the sky.

 _Maybe you two need to fuck to break the curse,_ writes Gwaine in the sky, and don't ask how Merlin knows Gwaine wrote that.

"Not where you might see," Arthur calls.

 _Shame. I had my wank-sock ready._

"Shame indeed," Merlin mutters, clutching Arthur's hands to his chest. "Listen, I ought to get you back out now."

"I'd like to stay with you a bit longer," Arthur mumbles, already angling for another kiss. Merlin freely gives in, because it sure feels nice to kiss the love of your life a thousand years after having waited for him.

"I'd like for you to stay, too, but now that we know that even true love's kiss is ineffective, my magic'll run out soon and you shouldn't be here when that happens."

"But what about seeing Camelot, all our past memories?"

Merlin shrugs. "Some other time, I promise." He has to fight with Arthur for half an hour more until Arthur capitulates.

"Don't die," Arthur says fiercely, kissing Merlin one more time before Merlin rolls his eyes at him and steps back to work his sorcery.

And Arthur disappears in a flash of magic, leaving Merlin alone to look at himself being manhandled by another Arthur. He wistfully watches the two of them fall in love then and there, and then everything goes black.

* * *

 _Hey, Arthur._

Why are you still writing in the book

 _Nostalgia_

The Headmaster's waiting to see the real Merlin in the flesh, you know

 _He can wait a bit more_

Merlin

 _Arthur_

I love you, and I'm sorry it had to take a powerful magical punch to get me to remember you and everyone else, I'm an arse and a git and a prat and an utter cock, but as the Head Boy of your new school I command you to

 _Yes,_ _Sire._

Don't get shirty with me. (I'm all yours, yeah?)

 _'Course, Arthur. (And I'm all yours, too.)_


End file.
